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Books
Though the mostly unheralded centennial of Queen Victoria rsquo s death has now drawn to a close it is pleasant to see various aspects of her sprawling era still being hailed by two writers who differ as Victorian critics might have said toto caelo In a consistently engaging and spirited if som
News
U.S. Cardinals Meet in RomeThe sexual abuse of minors is rightly considered a crime by society and is an appalling sin in the eyes of God, said a communiqué issued at the conclusion of an extraordinary two-day meeting between American prelates and the Vatican officials on April 23-24. It also calle
Faith in Focus
Once I finally found the street in the South Bronx for which I had been searching, I almost immediately spotted my destination, a funeral home. From my vantage point inside the car, it looked like little more than a storefront, wedged in between a bodega and an apartment building. If it weren’
Letters
Credit Where Due
In reading through the items in Signs of the Times of your March 11 issue, my eyes went to the picture of the unidentified woman waving the youth day flag at the World Trade Center in New York. And yes, even from the side view I recognized her. She is Francine Guilmette, F.M.A., a Salesian sister, who is the associate director of the World Youth Day Organizing Committee in Toronto, and one of the best youth ministers Montreal has ever had on the diocesan level. She worked many years with me when I was in the diocesan pastoral office and really changed the face of what we call youth ministry. I think she deserves full identification. Much thanks for a superb magazine, to which I look forward every week.
(Msgr.) Francis Coyle
Editorials
When Secretary of State Colin Powell returned from the Middle East, the talking heads speculated that his mission had been a failure. They could make a plausible case. The rulers of the Arab world had refused to make any moves to assist him until the Israelis withdrew from the West Bank. Mr. Arafat,
The Word
Since most dioceses have transferred the observance of the Ascension to this Sunday preaching on these Sunday readings will be relatively rare Yet they contain rich resources for reflection as the church prepares for the liturgical re-enactment of the coming of the gift of the Spirit at Pentecost
Books
To what extent would it be meaningful or even coherent to think of the moods and experiences of a human lifeits solitude fears sufferings and joys from birth to deathas spiritual events taking place and reverberating within God Is there not something unyielding about the conditions of life th
The Word
A courtroom dramawhether it is a John Grisham novel a prime time TV series or one of a host of films from To Kill a Mockingbird to Philadelphiaprovides enduring fascination Especially common are plots pitting a little-known lawyer defending a victimized client against powerful adversaries This
Of Many Things
I first heard of Epica at my former parish in Washington, D.C. Several staff members attended its main Sunday Mass, and one was married there. The acronym stands for Ecumenical Program on Central America and the Caribbean. Its mission statement describes the 30-year-old group as an ecumenical faith-
Books
While the majority of the 53 000 babies born prematurely each year in the United States would have died soon after birth if they had been born years ago this improvement is not an unmitigated success story since a good number of these children will endure long-term suffering and disability John L
I think it was in the early 1980’s that I met a fellow Jesuit at a conference on liberation theology and philosophy. As I recall, we were discussing a book I had written, Following Christ in a Consumer Society. He liked its political and cultural analysis, but found my emphasis on the vows, es
Faith in Focus
For longer than I knew, my father’s Arabic-language Bible lay on the dining table, a thick, gold-leafed tome, warm and fragile with years of page-turning, the family’s sacred text that had sustained Dad on his long journey from Syria to America. That Bible now sits atop my own bookshelf.
“We are being pressured to participate in non-heartbeating cadaver organ transplants at our hospital, and we don’t think it is ethical,” commented the I.C.U. director of a major medical center. He and his staff opposed the process that removes life-sustaining ventilation from a ter
The Word
In one of the annual preached retreats I was subjected to as a young Jesuit the director presented a vivid picture of the ascension long before the age of shuttle launchings As Jesus rose heavenward he saw Jerusalem Nazareth Galilee Asia Minor Greece and finally Rome This is precisely what
Culture
For the past several hundred years, since the invention of the printing press and the dissemination of books in fact, the most frequent encounter with the poem has been with what we find on the page. But that is not the way poetry was meant to be experiencedany more, I suppose, than Scripture should
Books
John Mearsheimer the R Wendell Harrison Distinguished Service Professor of Political Science at the University of Chicago has a gift for generating controversy In an address he gave in 1997 to the entering freshman class about the aims of an undergraduate education Mearsheimer argued that Chica
Editorials
Should Mentally retarded people be executed? That the question is even being posed shows how deeply entrenched capital punishment remains in the United States. But this is the question now under consideration by the Supreme Court. The court’s decision will determine whether executions of peopl
News
Vatican Summit Seen as First Step in Solving Abuse CrisisBy convening a summit meeting with U.S. cardinals, the Vatican has sent the strongest signal to date that it views the clergy sex abuse scandals as a grave crisisnot just for the dioceses involved but for the entire church in the United States
Catholic health care is a ministry whose deep roots can be traced back to the healing works of Jesus and to the compassionate care of religious women and men and laypersons around the world over many centuries. Though never easy, working in this ministry has become increasingly difficult with the ri